An active ray-curable ink is known as one of the inks to be used in an ink-jet recording system. The active ray-curable ink is an ink containing a polymerizable compound that is cured by irradiation with active rays. Because such an active ray-curable ink further contains a gellant, the ink gels due to the crystallization of the gellant when landing on a recording medium and cooled, and hence the pinning property of the ink is enhanced, whereby the gloss of the ink can be easily adjusted.
In an ink-jet recording system, a full color image can be formed by selecting, from among a yellow ink, a magenta ink, a cyan ink, and a black ink, a combination of suitable inks in accordance with a color to be formed and by superimposing the selected inks. Also, the color gamut of an image to be formed can be further expanded by using at least one of an orange ink, a green ink, and a violet ink in combination as a special color.
In the following cited literatures 1 to 3, an orange radiation-curable gel ink, a green radiation-curable gel ink, and a violet radiation-curable gel ink, each containing a gellant, are disclosed as active ray-curable inks for special colors and for an ink-jet recording system.